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I'm not really that well informed, but I thought To Bolt or Not to Be at Smith was the first " sport route ", like 1983?

Dirty Gerdie I don't think counts, there are three pins I think, and clipping the first one is pretty sporty.

Coming from further South, the very few bolts in the Gunks interested me enough that Never Never Land was my first 5.9 lead. P-38/SL as I did it was almost all nuts,was it different earlier?

Circa 1981/2 Mel Hamel and I came here and explored the recently discovered South Buttress. The waitress at the Big Pickle gave us a topo on a napkin for Children's Crusade, to " follow a line of bolts up a left leaning dike". The first one we came to( I'd never seen such a thing) was Last Tango, and we got way up into it, of course, it was wet at the bottom and I climbed it one barefoot and one shod, and couldn't do the crux, but being NH where we always got our asses handed anyway, we just assumed we sucked.

Next day the waitress straightened us out, we did CC. Later happened to walk by when Russ and Rosie had just freed LT. Surely that is/ was a sport route?

Edit: When we pushed the envelope, we yo-yo'd, which to us was way more acceptable than hang dogging per se. Three falls, you're out. Fall and must go back to a no-hands rest. I don't ever recall doing it toward a redpoint goal, if yo-yo'd it was compromised, but ok for training.

Fantastic stories, Tom. I do remember doing some stepping up down and up again low down on DG too.Tho' I think JB Tribout freed To Bolt around '85/'86. I remember that the video of JB and a bunch of Lycra clad climbers, incl Lynn Hill, free climbing the route was all the rage when I started out in '89/'90. Sportiva Mega was the hot shoe then. First .14 in the US!!

John, just go for it! Some classics to be uncovered, I am sure.

Logged

"You have to decide to do a flag, where you can broke your vertebrae or a barn door depending of your pro" - the poster formerly known as Champ

Watts put up a lot of stuff at Smith that is clearly sport well before To Bolt. I remember doing doing Bishop's Jaggers in the South Platte with Ajax in '85 and off to the right was this interminable line of bolts (Tales of Topographic Oceans), I mean, there was one every 10 goddam feet. We looked at each other and just shook our heads, 'For Chrissakes, what p---y did that?'

Agree Jon, crest jewel is a great route, but bolts in the right places? They could have taken a couple from the "crux" pitch and put them on the runout first or second. I walked out there in the dark and almost went home looking at the first pitch, only 5.9 I know. You risk your ass on the first two pitches and then there is a bolt every five feet at the supposed crux. Fine to have one bolt per pitch on 5.9 and then a bolt ladder on 5.10 as long as it was bolted on lead.

Good point Ward..it was bolted in EB's and some rain..must have been gripping. Quite few Valley routes now have bolts all over because of better shoes. Anchor's Away is brutal.I got lost on P 5 Crest Jewel ? once and clipped one bolt in 150'

I led the third pitch of Bishop's Jaggers, which was pretty mellow, easy 5.8 I think they called it, but had one bolt in a 150'. So I climbed and climbed and finally about 80' out saw the bolt--20' down and to the right--thought about it for a second and decided 'f--ck it, no way it's worth downclimbing to clip that' and just kept going. That's the problem with TTO, it's just completely out of a character for the area. Besides, seems to me that 'slab sport climb' should be an oxymoron.

Speaking of sport climbing..I have been replacing quite a few bolts out here in Co and must say that some of them reming me of NH !!! Some real shit that is 25+ years old...self drives,,stars,,,homemade hangers..all kinds of shit